We should have seen this coming. When the U.S. Secretary of State delivers a major address on U.S. foreign policy, the world listens — and responds. And many nations are a little, shall we say, perplexed, at Hillary Clinton’s announcement that the President has directed all American foreign assistance and diplomatic agencies to advance lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.

Secretary Clinton said in a speech, “Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.” Actually, this new emphasis has little to do with human rights and almost everything to do with the presidential campaign. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, calls the initiative “more than likely a painless way for the Obama administration to placate the homosexual community in the U.S.”

Given the fact that this year the Obama Administration decided not to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which acknowledges that marriage is only between one man and one woman, and that they oversaw the end of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy in the military, it’s not hard to see the agenda that the Administration is following.

Not surprisingly, the LGBT community is trumpeting the Administration’s move. But how are countries around the world reacting? The Venezuelan press got it right when it proclaimed that the “rights” of LGBT people are now at the “heart of American foreign policy.” Imagine the implications of that, folks.

Predictably, leaders of many nations in Africa are shocked. A senior adviser to Uganda’s president told The Christian Science Monitor that this approach would be “anathema” to most African nations. “I don’t like her tone,” he said of Mrs. Clinton. “I’m amazed she’s not looking to her own country and lecturing them first, before she comes to say these things which she knows are very sensitive . . . Homosexuality here is taboo.”

Nearly all of Africa’s 54 nations ban homosexuality. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has just proposed banning so-called same-sex “marriages.” The Atlantic reports that “African countries are growing increasingly tired of [the West’s] preoccupation with this issue.” Britain, for instance, has “warned it will consider withholding aid from nations which do not recognize gay rights."

This is another setback for our relations with Muslim countries. We’re rubbing their noses in it, telling them that they have to take something that they see, that is homosexuality, as the ultimate expression of Western decadence, and they’ve got to embrace it themselves. Can we force countries to do this?

Well, the Administration’s position is that countries should prohibit the brutalizing of gay people, and that’s a proper thing for the Administration to do. No one should be, as Land said, “flogged or put to death for their sexual sins.”

But to actively promote the LGBT agenda abroad is disastrous. This new policy to affirmatively advance gay rights will compromise our relations with African countries, Catholic countries, and Muslim-majority nations. And, as I said on BreakPoint earlier, contrast the Administration’s aggressive stand here with their silence over religious persecution. Religious liberty, remember, is enshrined in our Constitution.

Any way you look at it, Secretary Clinton’s announcement is bad news. Either the Administration is playing politics with our foreign policy to appease sexual liberals, or it is aggressively exporting its assault on traditional morality and marriage. For shame.

Comments:

Unless you're talking with a dear old friend, JOSH, the use of the last name alone in direct address is generally considered a little forward. And any part of your comment, including the address, is fair game for a response.

Posted By: Gina Dalfonzo on December 21, 2011 8:51 PM

Speaking of the infantile, who is assuming that addressing a person by the last name is extremely clever and striking? Is this supposed to be a response? How is this even relevant?

If you want to post a response, at least try to respond to one of the issues raised.

Posted By: JOSH Yo on December 21, 2011 3:52 PM

I wonder why people appear to think it's so exquisitely clever and striking to call a man by his last name, when a kindergartner could do it.

Just thinking aloud . . .

Posted By: Gina Dalfonzo on December 21, 2011 9:13 AM

Nigeria Already Passed a Traditional Marriage Law

Dear Mr. Colson,

There is one correction on an otherwise excellent commentary. According to One News Now, Nigeria passed a law affirming God's design for marriage a few years ago:

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=403546

Naturally, homosexual activists in European countries like Britain demanded Nigeria's foreign aid be cut because of the country's bold moral stance. In short, European homosexuals would let Black kids in Nigeria starve to death because their parents aren't "pro-gay" enough.

I won't got into the racist undertones of once pro-slavery Europe trying to bully an African nation.

And pro-gay liberals accuse conservative Christians in the West of being imperialists. Talk about not seeing the log in your own eye.

Posted By: Fred Weaver on December 21, 2011 6:32 AM

Colson, explain yourself...

Because you come across as a real bigot. What exactly is it that you object to here? You presumably accept the idea that LGBTs have rights that ought to be defended, don't you? You do recognize that LGBT's are targeted for persecution in many countries, don't you? You just think we ought to turn a blind eye to this so as not to upset religious fundamentalists like yourself?

How shameful.

Posted By: JOSH Yo on December 21, 2011 1:09 AM

Sexual litmus test

So now it appears that not only could acceptance of homosexuality become a measuring rod for supporting our allies, but perhaps also a new excuse for empire building.

Posted By: Philip Fennell on December 20, 2011 2:53 PM

Lots of Fallout from this Activism...

Reread this article twice...Am still processing what may well be the many, many, many activist steps to come...

*One possible consequence...(out of MANY)

Some extremist "follow the culture before Christ" US/European denominations may see member churches ------split off and align themselves under more spiritually sound authority of African spiritual leaders (as did some in the Episcopal church a while back). (Here we see the GREAT payoff of our ancestors' late 19th century mission work...!)

Have not fully processed ALL the bad consequences...

Thank you for your analysis!

And parents...are your college kids being taught WHAT to think? or HOW to think? This issue is a KEY ONE where rational thought is needed!